JCTC: Tom Coronel Motegi Finale Report

Tom Coronel and his teammate Hidetoshi Mitsusada finished in fifth place
with the Mobil 1 Nakajima Honda NSX in the final round of the Japanese GT
series at Motegi. The championship was won by Erik Comas in the NISMO
Nissan Skyline GT-R.
"All in...

Tom Coronel and his teammate Hidetoshi Mitsusada finished in fifth place
with the Mobil 1 Nakajima Honda NSX in the final round of the Japanese GT
series at Motegi. The championship was won by Erik Comas in the NISMO
Nissan Skyline GT-R.

"All in all fifth place is not too bad", Coronel said afterwards. "After
winning the last race at Aida our handicap weight was increased up to 90
kg. With this weight the Nakajima engineers were trying hard to optimize
the car. They did a fin job and especially the handling was outstanding
this time. As in the last race my teammate Hidetoshi Mitsusada took the
start. He got of the line very well and gave it his best shot. Two laps
before the end of his stint he collided with another car. He spun and
dropped back to sixth place. The driver- and tyre-change went perfect.
Just like in the last race we tried to gain a lot of time on cold tyres.
It worked out quite well, in fact a bit too well. When I drove out of the
pits I released the button of the speedlimiter a bit too early. Because of
this I drove 9 km/h to fast according to the radar of the race officials.
I was called in for a stop and go penalty which was understandable but
sorry for me. Fortunately the setup was also good in the second part of
the race so I was able to keep pushing. Fifth was all we could take today.
Looking back at this season we have to conclude that we had a lot of
problems in the first few races. In the second part of the year things
went better and better. At the end of November the All star GT race well
be held at Autopolis. This is a non-championship race were all cars drive
without handicapweight. Last year we won the All Star race at Aida and I
expect that we will do well again this year. We now found a really good
setup for the Honda NSX so we are definitively going for a repeat of last
year's race", Coronel concluded afterwards.

In the mean time Coronel is preparing himself for the Formula Nippon
championship showdown at Suzuka. The race will be held at 14 November. As
might be known the Dutchman is leading the championship by 4 points to his
rival Satoshi Motoyama.